Amarillo Animal Control, the Humane Society and Texas Panhandle Pet Savers came together Tuesday morning to get ideas on how to get more animals out of the Animal Control shelter alive.
"Open Saturday hours so more people can get out there to adopt," Texas Panhandle Pet Savers President Robin Cupell said. "It would be programs to enhance their health while they're there so that they have more of a shot at being adopted, as well. Volunteer programs to exercise and to work with the dogs, again, to make them more adoptable, work with the cats and socialize them..."
Pet Savers proposed expanding and promoting adoption programs and allowing volunteers more time with the animals to help get them used to interaction.
"I think the Humane Society does a great job," Cupell said. There's just a huge number of animals that need help and so they can't do it alone."
More than 10,000 animals are euthanized in the Texas Panhandle every year, and even though many of them are wild animals and reptiles, many of them are the domestic pets people love so much.
Cupell hopes with the help of the shelter and the Humane Society, those numbers will drastically decrease.
"The focus right now at the animal shelter is just sheltering the animals while someone comes in to look for them," she said. "We really want the focus to be to enhance the quality of life and to make them actually more adoptable. There's a lot of things that can be done to make them more appealing to an adopter so that we can get them our of there through the front door."
The board will meet again in February with budgeting estimates.
A two-part series will be featured on Pronews 7 this Wednesday and Thursday night focusing on the possibility of a no-kill shelter in Amarillo.
